


Together

by Apuzzlingprince



Series: Witcher Fanfics [7]
Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher (Video Game), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types, Wiedźmin | The Witcher Series - Andrzej Sapkowski
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-27
Updated: 2018-02-27
Packaged: 2019-03-21 23:20:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,686
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13751334
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Apuzzlingprince/pseuds/Apuzzlingprince
Summary: Prompt: Shared Pain soulmate AU with Eskel/Geralt.





	Together

Most Witcher’s knew how to identify a soulmate. It was not part of the curriculum like it was in non-witcher schools, but it was the sort of thing that reached one through the grapevine. Eskel, however, was not satisfied with mere gossip; after finding out what soulmates were, he took the initiative and questioned the older students that came to winter in Kaer Morhen, and though few of them had met their soulmate, and fewer more wanted to, they were eager to demonstrate their knowledge of the outside world by answering any questions he had.

(A few years after telling Eskel of all the wonders beyond Kaer Morhen, those very witchers would die within its crumbling walls, felled by an angry mob.)

Pain, they told him, was the primary identifier. Once you came in proximity of your soulmate, you would start to feel their pain. Not fully, of course; that would be intolerable, but you would feel a shadow of it. When Eskel asked them how he was supposed to tell the difference between normal pain and soulmate pain, they didn't have an answer for him.

Training often left Eskel aching. And so did the mutations, when those came around, and when he began on The Path, pain occurred often enough that even if he had been near his soulmate, he was sure the sensation would have been lost among the presence of his injuries. Pain was a constant companion of a witcher, and Eskel started to understand as he got older why the other students – long dead, now – had been so disillusioned with the concept of a soulmate.

Eskel had grown up a romantic, often dreaming of the day he would meet his beloved; he didn't anymore. After receiving a grotesque scar that started at the left corner of his mouth and curved up toward his ear, giving him a perpetual half-smile, he was sure even if he had a soulmate and even if he somehow managed to stumble upon them, they wouldn’t want to have anything to do with him. He was repulsive. Even the girls he _paid_ to lie with him couldn’t stand to meet his gaze.

He came to terms with that fairly quickly. Being a mutant had taught him to take rejection in stride. The prostitutes were fine company, anyway, provided he took them from behind rather than on their back. If he did that, he didn’t have to see the way they grimaced or flinched at the sight of his glasgow smile. They were soft and wet and warm, and for a few extra orens they would let him hold them for a while after their lovemaking, as though they were real lovers. As long as he could indulge in this on the odd occasion, Eskel didn't need the real thing. That was what he told himself, anyway.

It was while he was holding a prostitute that he felt it – a blinding agony, a supernova bursting in his neck. He cried out loud enough to send the girl he was with skittering away from him, backing into a corner as though he were a rabid cur. He lay on the bed, writhing and clutching his neck until the agony finally subsided. It had gone for all of a few seconds, but Eskel would not soon forget the experience.

“What the hell’re you doing to my girl?” the Madame bellowed as she entered their room. Eskel had just enough presence of mind to cover himself with a sheet.

“Apologies,” he said, tense and disorientated, a hand still cupped to his neck. The skin there tingled faintly. “I must have pulled a muscle.”

“Sounded more like you got gutted,” said the Madame, scoffing. She herded her girl out of the room, throwing a gown over her thin, quaking shoulders. "Now, as much as I appreciate your generous patronage, I think you'd best leave." Eskel nodded numbly, but the woman continued regardless. "You gave my girl quite a scare, Master Witcher, and no doubt the other customers heard you. If you're going to be screaming in the middle of the night, there are places better suited for that."

"Better than a brothel?" asked Eskel.

The Madame put her hands on her hips. "The screaming that goes on here isn't like the screaming you just did. Thought I'd come in here and find someone dead. That's the kind of sound you made. These aren't overnight lodgings, anyway. If you want to sleep, there's a few Inn's around with rooms free."

To that, Eskel merely nodded. The madame, after scrutinising him for a few long seconds, finally left the room. The moment she was gone, Eskel slid out of bed and retrieved his clothes from the floor, throwing them on. He spent the rest of the evening meandering the streets of Vizima in search of someone with a neck injury. 

He found nothing. Even the hospital, when he peeked inside, supplied no one with a suitable ailment.

He eventually situated himself in a dark corner of the Old Narakort Inn and drifted in and out of a doze, his mind whirring with a wakefulness that he found impossible to overcome. During his lucid moments, his thoughts kept on supplying excuses - he really _had_ pulled a muscle; it was an old injury acting up; he'd been lying on it wrong, but none of them were explanation enough to make his maelstrom of thoughts calm down and permit him some real sleep.

“Did you hear?” one of the other patrons murmured. Eskel was only half listening. “The King’s daughter – the curse has been lifted. She ain’t a striga anymore.”

"What's a striga?" asked his companion.

"You know, a... demon thing. Anyway, it doesn't matter. The witcher spent the night in her crypt and now she's human again."

Eskel inclined his head toward the conversing men, his curiosity piqued.

“Whoever cured her just got a three thousand oren reward,” said another patron. “Lucky bastard.”

“I wouldn’t say so,” said the first. “They got their neck split open. Probably won’t live through the night.”

“They killed a bunch of people in The Fox,” piqued up a woman. “He got what he deserved, the albino freak.”

Eskel didn’t catch the rest of the conversation. His ability to discern what they were saying abandoned him upon realising who they were talking about, and what it meant for him.

Slowly, he retrieved his swords from where they were leaning against the wall and approached the bar. “Where is the witcher being kept?” he asked, and they would no doubt be able to tell that he, too, was a witcher by his bright yellow eyes.

The pudgy, red-faced man who had broached the topic of the striga sneered at him and took a swig of his beer. “Doesn’t matter, he's dead.”

“Apparently they could see inside his neck!” said the man's companion. “If he isn’t dead yet, he probably will be soon.”

Eskel took a couple of short breaths to calm himself. “I’d like to see for myself. Please tell me where they are.” He wouldn’t start a scene. Unlike Geralt, he knew when to sheath his sword and when to draw it, and a couple of boorish peasants weren’t worth sullying his steel over. 

Having failed to elicit the response he’d been hoping for, the pudgy man frowned. “In the castle, probably. But you ain’t going to be able to get in there. Not ‘till morning, at least.” He chuckled. “They're running around like chickens with their heads cut off. Don’t have time for the likes of you.”

Eskel nodded his thanks and left the Inn.

The pudgy man had been right; when he approached the castle gate and identified himself as an associate of Geralt’s, the guards refused to let him enter. He tried asking questions instead and they refused to answer them just as staunchly. Despite Geralt's story of valour soaring through Vizima at breakneck speed, they seemed to be trying to keep things hush-hush (and were doing a spectacularly bad job of it).

At a loss for what else he could do, Eskel sat down a few feet from the gate and meditated. He tried not to think about anything at all.

“You there, witcher.”

He opened his eyes. Under the glare of the morning sun, his retinas throbbed and his pupils dilated. There was dew on his eyelashes. 

He was not well rested.

“Witcher,” said the voice again, and Eskel turned to see a nobleman in a blue tunic approaching him. “You’re here for your friend, I gather? He’s in the guardroom.”

“Alive?” asked Eskel, calm despite the tight ball of anxiety gathering in his chest. His heart rate accelerated when the man paused, thudding uncomfortably against his rib cage.

The man slowly nodded. “For now, yes. Whether he survives the following day, we have yet to see. He hasn’t awoken.”

Eskel rose onto weak legs. “May I see him? Please?” He didn’t try to conceal the beseeching note in his voice.

Should Geralt’s injuries prove too much for him, Eskel didn’t want him to die alone. Geralt had always been scared of that. He'd told Eskel as much while they were too young to be ashamed of such things. He'd crawled into Eskel's bed late at night, cuddled up to him, all lanky limbs and messy white hair, and whispered to Eskel that he didn't want to die like the other kids, the ones that had gone out on a trial and never come back. He didn't want to die alone and afraid. He'd never mentioned it again after that, but Eskel had never forgotten.

“Of course,” said the man, and Eskel’s shoulders slumped in relief. “Come this way, er…?”

“Eskel.”

“Eskel.” The man smiled charmingly. “Mine’s Velerad. I’ll bring you to his room and fill you in. You can tell him what happened, should he wake.”

* * *

A full day passed before Geralt regained consciousness. He moaned softly, shifting his head, and within seconds Eskel had abandoned his own cot to stand by Geralt's.

“Don’t get up, Wolf,” he murmured, pressing a cool palm to Geralt’s clavicle to prevent any attempts to rise out of bed. “You’ll fall unconscious again.”

“Eskel?”

“Yes.”

"Why're you... here..."

He tucked some of Geralt's hair behind his ears, just to get it out of his sweaty face. “I was in the Old Narakort Inn. I came by when I heard what had happened.”

Geralt swallowed, wincing. “My swords?”

“All your belongings are here. Your reward, too. Three thousand orens.”

“How long-“

“Two days,” said Eskel, anticipating the question. “In a few more, we’ll relocate to the Temple of Melitele. Nenneke will care for you.”

Geralt licked his lips. His mouth looked painfully dry, but Eskel could tell by the lulling of his head that he would fall unconscious before Eskel could retrieve him a glass of water. He decided instead to wet a cloth that had been intended to cool Geralt's forehead and press it to Geralt's mouth, which the man sucked at a few times before the exertion proved too much.

“You should rest, Wolf.”

After a few seconds of struggling against drooping eyelids, Geralt succumbed to slumber.

* * *

The first few days of their journey was uneventful, with Geralt waking only to eat, drink, and piss. His throat had swelled up, and consequently, he wasn’t able to indulge Eskel in conversation for what little time he _was_ awake, which meant Eskel had yet to find an opportunity to mention that they were soulmates. He didn’t want to tell Geralt while the man couldn’t respond. He didn’t think that would be fair on either of them.

So he waited, patiently. He was very good at waiting patiently. It had been one of Vesemir’s primary lessons, though he suspected Vesemir had only taught patience to him so doggedly in the hopes it would make Eskel quieter in the evenings, which was when boredom had tended to settle into his adolescent mind (and things like tying bees to jugs had happened).

By the time they reached the outskirts of Ellander, Geralt had finally regained the ability to speak, though quietly and haltingly. The first thing he asked was what Eskel had been doing in Vizima.

“Receiving payment for a contract,” said Eskel. “Someone wanted teeth from different beasts. I provided.”

“Hope the pay was… worth it…”

“It was.” Eskel handed Geralt a water skin, which Geralt took tentative sips from. “Nenneke’s going to want to remove those stitches when we arrive.”

“They’re fine,” muttered Geralt.

“Didn’t say they weren’t, but they’ll be removed all the same.”

Geralt sighed and leaned against the wall of the carriage, peering past Eskel and out the window. They weren’t far from their destination. “Gonna end up spending… another week having to grunt to c… communicate.”

“You’ll survive,” said Eskel, handing Geralt a flask of Swallow once he’d had his fill of water. Geralt drank the contents in two gulps and handed the empty flask back to him. “Geralt,” said Eskel hesitantly, after a long silence had descended. He hadn’t called Geralt by his name in a long time.

Geralt cast him a curious look. “Mm?”

“When you were injured, I felt it.”

Though Geralt wasn’t the most expressive of people, his shock was immediately apparent. “What… what exactly did you feel?”

“A sort of sharp burning, right here.” He gestured to the side of his neck, at the very area Geralt had been injured. “It’s just been prickling, since then.” A pause. “I used to get prickling like that when we were kids. Always thought it was just the mutations, but maybe it was this.”

“I thought so too,” murmured Geralt, openly staring at Eskel, as though seeing him for the first time. “What do we… do now?”

“Don’t know,” said Eskel, crossing the carriage to sit next to Geralt. Geralt didn’t appear to be uncomfortable with the proximity, so he slid an arm around his waist and drew him closer, almost into his lap. He very much would have liked Geralt in his lap… but another time. They would soon be arriving at the temple and demonstrations of affection were frowned upon by the priestesses.

“Seems like you have something of an idea,” said Geralt, giving a short chuckle and then a terrible, twisting grimace.

“Don’t do that.” Eskel ran a hand through Geralt's hair, down to the nape of his neck. “Just relax. Rest.”

“Gotta get up in a minute anyway.”

“I could carry you.”

Geralt snorted. “You can hold... me upright. No carrying necessary.”

“If you insist, Wolf.”

* * *

Nenneke let them share a room under the assumption Eskel would keep Geralt in line. While Eskel _did_ keep Geralt in line, ensuring that he got plenty of food, and water, and rest, she probably wouldn’t have put them in the same room had she known what they got up to at night.  

When night fell, Eskel would join Geralt in his bed and familiarise himself with every inch of Geralt’s body, and every sound and reaction he could draw out of it. Sex wasn’t the focus of their time together, however; they simply wanted to be close, as close as two people could get, and lying against each other and touching each other and exchanging sloppy kisses achieved that.

How he had gone so long not realising Geralt was his soulmate, Eskel didn’t know. It seemed so obvious now that he knew. The wolf was, and always had been his closest friend. There was no one he cared for more and no one he had spent more time with. They’d known each other practically since infancy. Geralt had been there when he’d received his first scrape and Eskel had been there when Geralt had received his. They had often sat together, bruised and throbbing, nursing their wounds, and taken comfort in each other. Even if they hadn’t been soulmates, it was hard to imagine it being anyone else.

Neither of them knew quite what to do with their newfound companionship, but when Geralt had recovered enough to resume walking the path, they did so together.


End file.
